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Title

Where

Bavaro Hall Room 116

WHEN

Saturday, DEC 2

In the climate of our world and our community today, many of us may feel we are approaching the edge of our emotional capacity. Perhaps we are even going past that edge, and into a place of exhaustion, depletion, and burn-out.

In this half-day retreat being held on Sat. Dec. 2, hosted by the Contemplative Sciences Center, students will learn how to embody compassion and cultivate resilience – not only as activists and leaders in our communities, but as human beings having relational experiences. Throughout the course of the retreat, we will investigate self-preservation by using embodied wisdom to ignite social action that is generative and sustainable. We’ll share with one another, using storytelling and awareness-based practices in order to introduce a pause before reaction, that can support and sustain our capacity of responding to the events in our lives from a place of greater clarity and calm. These tools and practices are available to us all, they just need our awareness and attention to access them more consistently.

•A morning session, that will include lunch, is being offered from 9:30 AM - 1:30 PM for students of the “global majority” (Students of Color), and will be responsive to the specific needs of these students. Date: Dec. 2; Location: Bavaro Hall Room 116.

•An afternoon session, that will include a light dinner, is open to students from all races, ethnicities, sexualities, and backgrounds and is being offered from 2:30 PM - 6:30 PM. Date: Dec. 2; Location: Bavaro Hall Room 116.

There is no cost to attend either, or both, sessions but pre-registration is required in order to provide the appropriate amount of food at each session. Registration link to come.

Leslie Booker brings her heart, wisdom, and compassion to the intersection of social justice, yoga, and mindfulness. She has shared these practices with vulnerable populations in New York City since 2006, working in juvenile detention centers, residential treatment centers, and on Rikers Island. She travels nationally utilizing the foundation of Dharma and embodied wisdom practices to support the sustainability of front-line Changemakers.

Booker is on faculty with the Prison Mindfulness Institute and Off the Mat Into the World, and teaches at Insight Meditation centers across the country. She is a co-founder of the Yoga Service Council at Omega Institute, the Meditation Working Group of Occupy Wall Street and Urban Sangha Project in NYC. Booker is a co-author of Best Practices for Yoga in a Criminal Justice Setting, a contributor to Georgetown Law report Gender & Trauma, and Sharon Salzberg's book Happiness at Work. She is a graduate of both Spirit Rock's Mindful Yoga & Meditation and Community Dharma Leaders trainings, and is currently in their 4 year Dharma Retreat Teacher training.